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Suggestions on RAM for oc'ing a mobile barton 2500+

bmillerd

Member
So yeah, definitely not Mushkin lol. I'm sure it's probably just a one-time thing but I really don't want to take my chances.

I'm leaning towards Kingston because my old PC2700 was Kingston and it performed very well for ValueRAM but if someone has had a great experience with another comany I'm easily persuaded 🙂

I'd really like to hear from people who have an oc'd mobile barton and if possible, an NF7-S board. Thanks in advance.

<edit>

I'd really like to keep it under $150 for 2x512
 
Hello again bmillard!

I'm using what was pretty expensive Corsair (see my sig). I'm at Cas 2.0 with a FSB of 215. I had it up to 220mhz, but failed Memtest86 right at 24hrs. Don't know if it's a NB chipset limitation or I should just relax my timings (which I didn't wanna do).

Have heard a lot of good stuff about less expensive ram. IIRC it was PDQ with TCCD Samsung chips. They'll do 2-2-2-5 @ 200/400mhz.

Anybody else?

Fern
 
heh heya Fern 🙂

You're just a one-man tech support team for me today =P

I just took a look at the stuff on Newegg and have also heard good things about them. They look pretty inviting, they are a bit more expensive than I can afford ($30 is the difference between living in an apartment and living in a cardboard box at this point haha) but I might just have to break down and buy it anyway.
 
...you're my hero, lol

How'd you know that will work?
Why did that work?
Will I be able to bring it back to 215 FSB @ that vdimm and those timings?

<edit>

I've been doing some research and it seems that A LOT of people have problems with this mushkin on NF7 boards so I think I'm going to ahead and pick something else up anyway. Im' stable @ 215 FSB vdimm 2.9v but that's just not high enough for me and the only people with decent overclocks with this ram said it took them a LONG time to break it in.
 
Yeah just sell it off and get some TCCD RAM (TCCD being the chips, not a brand... ) I hear Patriot is good since it is less expensive than the others.... but pretty much any TCCD RAm will do.... I like mine since it runs ridiculously cool even at 220.... and the timings are 2-3-3-6 so not all that shabby.... it all depends on what you can afford.
 
yeah I think that's what I'm going to do...buy some nicer ram and just go with 512 instead of 1gb, I can always upgrade later
 
Mem's not your problem.. I thought I clued you in by telling you to lower multiplier earlier and it worked fine at DDR400... Now it's time to find what your CPU is capable of. Being that you have a mobile chip you have many options due to unlocked multi.... PLease take time to read OC sticky at top of forum if you have any questions.
 
well the high multiplier and low vcore was definitely the problem before, but when I run a divider I can pass prime95 just fine. it's when I get towards 215 FSB the the ram starts failing memtests, even when I leave it at 9 or 10x multi.
 
this might help speed you along.

settings abit nf7-s
-----------------------------
CPU Operating Speed user define
External clock 200
Multiplifier Factor: 12.5
AGP Frequency: 66
CPU FSB/DRAM Ratio: 5/5
CPU Interface: Enabled
Power Supply Controller: User Define
CPU Core Voltage: 1.75
DDR SDRAM Voltage: 2.8
Chipset Voltage: 1.7
AGP Voltage: Default

Advanced Chipset Features
Memory Timings: Expert
Row Active... : 10
Ras to Cas... : 3
RAS Precharge... : 3
CAS Latency... : 2.5
System Bios Cacheable: Disable
Video Ram Cacheable: Enable
CPU Thermal Throttling: Disable
Enhance PCI: Enable
CPU Disconnect: Disable
AGP Transfer: 8x
AGP Fast Writes: Enable.
IR: Disable if you don't use
SATA: Disable if you don't use
MIDI: Disable if you don't use

Disabled everything with a % sign

Now Prime that sucker!!!
 
thanks Zebo! I'm actually running really similar settings atm except I have the video ram cache disabled so I'll turn that back on. I just flashed to a modded d24 bios and memory is working like a champ now (passing memtest @ 220fsb), thanks for clueing me in on the possibility of it not being my ram. I'll try the settings you posted and tell you how it goes 🙂
 
or you could go 220 x 11 or 11.5..which ever works...mobiles are a wonderful thing arn't they?
 
Yes, yes they are =P Best $85 I ever spent 🙂

I actually tried that this morning, wasn't prime stable and I'm sure it was the voltage (had it low, forgot to turn it up). I primed it for a few hours @ 215fsb and it passed just fine, although my temps were high, moved all the way up to 50 after 3 hours. I'm going to give more to vcore and vdimm and try it again @ 220. My problem is though that I've been reading the NF7 has trouble with CL3 no matter the bios and my memory is value so it's nto really rated to stay at tight timings. It fails memtest @ 225 and my max vdimm is 2.9, so it's either a booster or a mobo mod for me and I'd really prefer not to do either.

I've been playing with the thought of picking up some PC3700 stuff so I could just oc my board and cpu to the stock speed of the memory. The difference in price on Newegg is 20, $18 less than the cost of buying an OCZ memory booster to push my ram. Then again, it would be nice to have the booster just because I like toys like that =P What do you guys think?
 
Screw that! bandwidth does little for you. Not worth more ram.. If I was U I would now find what chip is stable at. You already know mem is cool to about 220.

How you do that is: use a mem divider and start then maxing chip using multiplier and FSB between 210-220, and voltage. Understand?
 
theoretically, yes, logistically, no. I mean I can use a memory divider but the max mem divider on my board is 6/5 which, unless I can get to 233 FSB, actually underclocks my memory.

At this point I should probably point out too that my purpose here is ultimately to have a decent computer for gaming purposes. So I'm not overly concerned with benchmarks but rather gaming performance. Given that dividers hurt performance more on AXPs than on A64s, would it be better to just push for 225 FSB then play with the multi? Or is the memory divider hit so negligible that I'd be better with higher FSB on a divider?
 
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